This invention relates to methodology for handling photographic film and more particularly to a methodology for producing final photographic prints from exposed photographic film.
In a common photographic process, encountered for example in scenarios involving portrait, wedding, and commercial photographic assignments, a series of photographs are taken in a photographic studio, the exposed film is sent to a photographic laboratory, the film is developed in the laboratory, the film is put through an editing and analyzing process to perform corrections with respect to each frame of the film, a proof of each frame is made at the photographic laboratory utilizing the corrections developed during the editing and analyzing process, proofs are sent back to the photographer's studio where the photographer, typically in conjunction with the subject or subjects, views the proofs, and the proofs and then sent back to the photographic laboratory with or without instructions with respect to further corrections to be made to each frame before the final printing of the final photographic prints.
The correction instructions sent back to the photographic laboratory from the photographer's studio may be verbal or written but, in either event, they must be interpreted by the personnel in the photographic laboratory so as to perform the desired correction as to each frame of the film before the final prints are made. This interpretation of the corrections is necessarily a subjective process and as such is subject to considerable error in the sense that the photographer/customer's precise wishes are not carried out in the course of producing the final photographic prints.